


submarine

by kuroosonlyfans



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 15:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19275844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroosonlyfans/pseuds/kuroosonlyfans
Summary: AU: Nico wakes up from his 3-day coma in South Carolina and is met with Leo showing up carrying emotional baggage and a container full of roast beef.





	submarine

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for a creative writing project like 3 months ago and after looking back at it the entire story kind of sucks and there are plot holes but whatever idk where else to put it
> 
> all mistakes are mine (unedited)

“Three days?”

Reyna shakes her head, face stony and blank. “We couldn't move you. I mean, you literally couldn't be moved. You had almost no substance.”

Nico tries to push himself up to survey his surroundings (all he sees is a bland blue sky and dry, scratchy grass beneath his body) and his stomach feels like it’s threatening to spill contents that weren’t there in the first place, organs clawing their way up his throat. “Are we still—?” His voice is still raspy from exhaustion, and he’s cut off as black spots burst in his vision when he moves his head.

He can't believe he's been out for that long. Normally after he does something involving godly and/or terrifying, he takes a nap on the floor for maybe five hours max, not for 72 hours on an unidentified patch of grass.

“Lie back down.”

Nico sinks back into the grass. He waits for his head to stop spinning and says weakly, “Are we still in…,” he pauses, “I have no idea, actually. Republicans.”

“South Carolina. We’ve been getting food from an actual Confederate grocery store.”

“So a Confederate has been feeding me food after I passed out for three entire days.”

Reyna nods. “Essentially, yes. I think it was necessary after you went into a godly fit of rage and sunk a living Roman into Hell.” The words are kind of a shock to Nico’s sluggishly moving brain—he doesn’t process it at first, but when he finally does after a few seconds, he just says, bemuddled, “I really did that?”  

“Yes. A Roman came to fight us for the statue, but you turned him into a skeleton then passed out. Also, with the amount of energy you used, I don’t think your body would compute anything or store it from that moment on until now."

“Oh.” Nico rubs at his eyes, stinging from the bright sun, and is silent for a second. “I think we should get out of here, then.”

“There’s absolutely no way.”

“What?”

Reyna’s expression tightens. “You nearly died and were unconscious for the longest time. There’s no way you’ll be able to shadow travel us anywhere, especially with the Athena Parthenos; I doubt you’ll be able to use your powers to get 5 feet.” Nico would protest, but as always, Reyna is right—he can’t move without something in his body combusting or his throbbing ribs crunching. “We’re lucky Leo’s here to build us a way to get out, if he can do it in time. Romans attack Half-Blood the day after tomorrow.”

“What?” Nico says for the second time. A spiking pain shoots through his head and he waits a second for it to cease to speak again, sighing. “Why is Leo here?” It’s not that he doesn’t want Leo here—only partially, because Leo makes Nico’s blood pressure skyrocket sometimes—he thought Leo was _dead_. There’s only been radio silence since he was taken from the ship a few weeks ago, and Nico hasn’t been able to sense his life force at all. Jason’s been repeatedly asking him about Leo until him and Reyna left for New York, and it makes his chest ache that he’s telling the crew every day that Leo’s gone as far as he can tell, like a sick mantra.

(Some people can’t process death. Others refuse it. Nico thinks that Leo’s friends are in between.)

Reyna glances over her shoulder towards a patch of woods, mouth in a hard line, and turns back to him. “He came crawling out of the creek near the woods smelling like almonds and dragging a cloth bag full of roast beef. Apparently he has no idea where he is, and he won't tell us where he went, but the fact that we’re in the very same location is suspicious.”

“Roast beef.”

“And it was delicious,” someone—Hedge—says, and moves into Nico’s field of vision cradling a large bottle of yellow liquid and a banana. “Drink up, kiddo."

Nico reaches for the bottle, about to question its contents, but Hedge unscrews it and attempts to pour it into Nico’s barely-agape mouth. It spills down his chin and soaks into his shirt, which is gross; it’s sticky and it tastes like artificial lemons mixed with dirt.

“Oh my gods,” Nico nearly chokes on the drink and coughs the rest of it out onto Hedge’s shirt. Hedge ignores the wet spot on his shirt and puts down the bottle, frowning. “I don’t even know what that is. Are you trying to feed me _piss_?”

“It’s Gatorade,” Hedge looks offended. “Mixed with herbs. Roots. Satyr stuff.”

Reyna stoops down to face Nico. “Drink it. If it weren't for him when you were out...” Nico holds down a gag and all the thoughts of how nasty it tastes and lets Reyna hold it to his mouth. Hedge trudges off to the woods again.

They’ve been sitting in silence for a while now, feeling the bite of cool air on their cheeks and the dryness of the grass beneath them, when Hedge returns with Leo. Nico doesn’t want to stare, but he does—Leo looks years older than Nico last remembers. He’s thinner, more muscular maybe, tanner. There are bags under his eyes, grown out hair nearly hanging over them, and he walks with sort of an air of exhaustion.

Leo comes to a stop, holding a container full of what looks like roast beef. “Di Angelo.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Do I look dead to you?”

“Go away.”

Leo squats next to Nico’s makeshift bed, hovering over him. His curly hair dangles in his face and bounces as he shifts. “You drool in your sleep.” He says after a pause and places the food container on Nico’s chest, giving an obnoxious but watery grin, and leaves. Nico would glare but even moving his face is painful, so he sighs and drops his head back to the side.

  


Nico goes to sleep for another while, and when he wakes up it's completely dark except for the faint glow of a campfire a few meters away. The Gatorade must have helped or Hedge force fed him something while he was out cold, because unlike when he woke up, he feels like he can stand up and walk (albeit shakily), instead of collapsing on the ground immediately after moving his finger.

He does just that—he makes his way over to the campfire, dragging his Cars 2 blanket with him (Hedge had made Nico watch it with him back on the Argo and Nico decidedly declared that Lightning McQueen is a total power move on Disney’s side) and sits beside Reyna. She's toasting marshmallows on a stick while Hedge and Leo, sitting on the opposite side of them, devour a s'more in ten seconds.

"So," Reyna grabs a box of graham crackers and hands it to Nico. He has to force himself to look away from Leo and Hedge completely destroying their food, half of it coming out of their mouths and dripping onto the ground. It's nearly disgusting. "We have less than 48 hours to reach New York and stop the Romans from attacking Half-Blood."

"That's kind of crazy," Hedge says, chewing on his s'more. "We haven't even found anyone within 10 miles of here except that guy at the gift shop with the pickup truck. It can't just be me who thinks there's no other way to get a lift to camp."

"I'm trying to Iris message some people back at camp using the creek, I think they'll be able to reach us."

"I thought Iris message isn't working," Leo raises an eyebrow. "Gaea killing everyone, godly powers put on parental control mode, et cetera."

"I said I'm _trying_ ," Reyna shoots him a hard look. "It's hard to find a way to transport a giant statue several hundred miles. You can't give up now." Everyone turns their head towards the giant Athena Parthenos looming several meters away. It's technically the reason why they're stuck in South Carolina in the first place—Nico had to use shadow traveling to bring it to New York because it would bring peace between the Romans and Greeks, blah, blah, but the problem was he was bringing it all the way from Greece along with himself and two other people. He hasn't been able to control his powers on such a large scale, so they're jumping all over the world to random locations.

"He's right," Nico shrugs. "It seems like a lot of powers are grounded. Gaea must be halting communication to make us even more disorganized."

"Woman, you're not the only one who wants to get home. My wife is pregnant. Not saying I don't like being your parental chaperone, but my son is about to be born and I want to make it there in time. Got it?" Hedge says, pulling his baseball cap downwards.

"Leo, do you think you can help us? Build something?"

Leo thinks for a second. "Maybe. I'm not sure, because it depends on how many resources we have here, but I'll see what I can find."

"I would say that we could use the boat you came to the creek on, but that fell apart right after you got off. Really old design, from ancient times."

" _Yeah_ ," Leo stabs another marshmallow.

"Where'd you even come from?" Hedge asks.

"Not really any of your business."

Reyna leans forward. "But Leo, you—"

"Look, I said it's none of your business," Leo glares. "Drop it. I'll build you something, just leave me alone."

Reyna is stiff and upright on the grass, searching for a response. Hedge just aggressively bites another s'more while Leo slouches with his chin resting on his palm. Nico wraps himself up in his thick blanket. They're silent around the campfire for the rest of the night.

  


Nico doesn't want to repeat this question for Reyna (he didn't want to speak last night because it was none of his business, like Leo said), but he's the only one in the group who can sense death, and something's _really off_. You don't just disappear for weeks in the Aegean, undetectable, and come sailing back to the United States with a bag full of roast beef and stubborn secrets. Quite possibly from the way Leo speaks, literal emotional baggage.They're alone, standing in the shade of a bunch of scraggly trees, with only the sounds of running water and chirping birds around, so he thinks posing this question right now would be safer. So he does.

“Where were you?”

Leo hacks at the loose dirt beneath his feet with a muffled crunch each time he sifts through the soil using a stick. He had sworn that someone (Hephaestus, his dad, whatever) had dropped a massive sheet of bronze in the woods and it’s buried a few feet underground—Nico doesn’t really trust his opinion; he probably never trusted anyone's, so he’s saved himself from physical exertion by sitting on the lowest tree branch a few feet away and watching as Leo starts to sweat in the humid summer heat. “An island.”

“What island, the Isles of the Blest?”

“No.”

“Then where was it? I couldn’t sense you at all.”

“Can’t say, amigo,” He says in the tone of someone who can say, indignant at the least. Nico doesn’t push. "Why are all of you so intent on knowing where I am?"

“We all thought you were dead.” Leo stops attacking the ground with the stick, turning around to look at Nico with a bleak expression. “That’s what I assumed,” Leo shrugs, and resumes digging.

Nico blinks. He hadn’t known Leo that well, spending most of his time lying in the crow's nest on the Argo and screwing around with Piper’s DSi or sleeping for half the day while Leo ran around on deck screaming about the washing machine exploding, so he can’t really judge, but he never pegged Leo as the type to forget about his friends’ feelings. He’s practically glued to Jason and Piper at the hip; you don’t just ignore your friends grieving your hypothetical death. At least if you’re Leo.

And the only reason why Nico wasn’t phased by Leo appearing out of nowhere, dropped into the same hick town by either a really weird coincidence or maybe an unfortunate chance, is because he’s been sleeping with skeletons his entire life. Being the only living son of the god of the Underworld has very limited perks, one of which being the ability to be apathetic to… whatever this is supposed to be. He’s not even sure yet, and he almost doesn’t care.

Key word: almost. The crew on the Argo would kill him if anything else. He’s going to find out eventually.

“Where were you? Before we got you out of that jar thingy?”

“Underworld. Checking some stuff out. My dad made me sit in his house for dinner one night, but I climbed out the window and went to Tartarus.”

“Tartarus? You just climbed out your window to hang out in monster Hell?”

Nico tugs at a strand of dark hair. “I mean, yeah. That’s why I got locked in a jar by resurrected giant twins, anyway. Doors of Death open so monsters can kill us here, blah, blah.”

“Wandering around in Tartarus sounds like it sucks.”

“It’s lonely,” It’s the first thing to come to Nico’s mind. “Wandering around alone is the only thing I had been doing since I was eleven and my sister died. But I’m self-reliant anyway; I never wanted to shadow travel around the world with a giant statue, a scary woman, and a satyr.”

“I was alone for most of my life, and before I,” Leo pauses, as if to think. “Came here. And it’s weird because whenever I’m alone, I’m missing someone, but when I’m with other people, I feel out of place, so I’m never, like, satisfied, you know?”

Nico nods, silent. He'd never been able to get along with other demigods at camp after that one incident where he was ten, summoning literal skeletons from the ground and leaving a giant rift in the ground on their territory. Percy, his maybe-friend, was the only person who treated him somewhat normally. Every time he's around them there's a tension in the air, like everyone's waiting for something bad to crawl its way out of the ground, spitting out the cursed soil. Apprehensive stares and loud whispers don't reassure him any further.

“I think being alone is better, though. All I did was work and I didn’t think about anything else, like, I wasn’t even thinking about my friends or Gaea or our impending doom, because I thought I was stuck there forever—”  There’s a loud, muffled clang and Leo stops digging. “Got something.”

Nico wants Leo to finish his sentence. And stop being cryptic.

Leo drags out a hammered sheet of bronze. It’s small, maybe two feet in diameter, rough at the edges and smeared with wet dirt. Leo gives it a good kick and curses under his breath. “Definitely solid,” Nico snorts as Leo shakes his foot. “Help.”

They heave the plate out of the woods, sweat pouring in beads down Nico’s neck and dripping down his shirt as dirt sticks onto his sweatpants. By the time they get back to the tents, there’s a large patch of mud that more likely resembles dog poop smeared onto his pant leg. Nico tried to scrub it off with his hands and nearly misses Leo’s brief, “Later,” when he walks into his own building tent. A few seconds later, Nico hears a power drill and a loud banging.

Nico grabs a pouch of Capri Sun from his designated corner in his sleeping tent and sits cross-legged.  It’s accumulated two boxes of juice, the Cars 2 blanket, several snack packets that are probably stale, and a cassette player—he’s tripped on it at least three times when he goes out to use the bathroom at night, but he can’t be bothered to move it.

“Is he okay?” Reyna appears in the entrance.

Nico offers her a sip of Capri Sun and she declines. “I don’t think so."

"What—what do you think happened?"

"An island. Stuck there for a long time. That's all I got out of him, at least. Something had to happen to make him like this," Nico says.

"That could be anywhere. He could have died and been sent to a weirder version of Asphodel, or trapped in a godly punishment simulation, like Ogygia, or—"  Reyna looks like gears are turning in her head, but they're slightly rusty and refuse to work. "I have no idea. After this year, I've come to learn that I don't know a lot of things."

"Yeah," Nico leans back on a wooden crate. "He's really empty, like wherever he was drained him."

 

"I can't get us there in time."

"Why not?" Reyna clenches her dagger until her knuckles are white. "You said you would be able to."

"I said I _might_ ," Leo plays with a coil of metal in his hands. "I haven't been able to. We're literally in the middle of nowhere, lady, I had almost nothing to build with."

"And your toolbelt?"

"Only small parts of metal and a few tools. It overheats when I try to summon anything else—the gods aren't really excited about lending their powers right now."

Reyna's shoulders tense. "There has to be a way to leave faster. You have a navigation device, you can—"

"Yeah, a navigation device that starts _steaming_ if you use it," Leo yanks the tiny bronze device out of his pocket as if to show how every possible piece of equipment is failing to work. "I told you, nothing's working! I'm trying really hard, but there's nothing to work with except for personalized keychains and frog magnets at that gift shop!"

"How in the name of Jupiter will we get out of here, then? The Romans attack Half-Blood tomorrow, and we have to get the Parthenos there before we start killing each other."

Nico's been silently watching them go back and forth, like an aggressive tennis match. He starts, "I can try to shadow travel us there, seriously—"

"Nico, we've already said no, it'll kill you instantly. That's why Leo's here." Reyna says.

"So what if it kills me? At least the entire earth won't be destroyed."

"I think we've acknowledged that we _can't_ be in New York by tomorrow, and we're not going to commit a murder by proxy to get there," Leo says. "And Reyna, I'm not here to fix all your problems. I didn't _ask_ to be here."

"What'll we do then?" Nico asks.

"Nothing."

Reyna drops her dagger on the hastily-made table next to her with a clatter. "No, we can't do nothing."

"There's nothing else to do but nothing."

"If you don't help us leave, then it's going to be your fault the Parthenos never gets to camp. Your fault that our camps will never get along and go to war with each other." Reyna sends an accusatory glare towards Leo that can shoot a hole in the wall.

"My fault? What have _you_ done? I've been looking all over this freaking wasteland for days to find some sort of material and trying to build something with the one scrap of metal I dug out of the woods."

"I've been attempting to Iris message everyone on the face of the planet that I know and brainstorming every other option, but I haven't come up with anything. You're the only one who can do this, you have to. And you're prophesied to save the world, anyway!"

Leo laughs a laugh dripping with vitriol and gasoline; it's _bitter_ and almost makes Nico shudder. "I can't! You know, not all of your problems can be solved and you never seem to get that fact. You couldn't save your camp, you couldn't wake up Nico, you can't make us leave this stupid yeehaw state, and you keep pretending you can prevent all of those things!"

"Don't bring me into this," Reyna spits, boiling with anger. "We're talking about the future of the the world and I'm trying my best, but _you're_ not! You only complain about how hot it is or mope around about something you refuse to tell us about—we hardly know where you were and you won't say what happened back there that made you so depressed, all I'm trying to do is help you—"

"I'm not obligated to tell you anything, and you're not helping at all; you're just staking the blame on someone else for once so you won't look bad."

"Why can't you just tell us, Leo? We've been asking for days, there's clearly something wrong and we're _worried—_ "

"Because it isn't any of your fucking business."

"I think it is. You just don't trust me!" Reyna is seething and Leo's rigid, fists curled. Nico thinks if he stops holding his breath, they'll explode, leaving nothing at the camp but a giant crater and scorched ground. _Supernova_.

"Fine, do you want to know where I was for so long?" Leo's voice cracks. "I crash landed on Ogygia after a hot ice girl threw me off the ship and gods, this sounds stupid, but I fell in love after I thought I had realized there wasn't any way out. And I fell in love because she didn't think I was weird and she didn't expect anything from me like you're doing now and I finally felt like I could be somewhere that I'm not treated like I'm unwanted. I make a _begging_ , _contemptuous_ fool out of myself trying to be someone here, and I didn't have to do it there, I didn't have to do anything! Do you know how good that felt? I never had to try to be anything, I was something—I don't belong here, I thought you could tell, you even act like it." Leo might be crying. He's wavering, shaking. "I'm nothing here. And you are too. I didn't want to come back. That's why."

Reyna's are wide. Something's clicked, Nico can see it on her face. She's cooled to a simmer. "I didn't know. I didn't think it was that..."

"I didn't expect you to."

"I—I should probably go. Good night." Reyna picks up her dagger, fumbling for a second, and leaves the tent.

It's silent for a long time. Leo just stands there, staring at the ground with his hands shoved in his camo jacket pockets and breathing steadily. "I'm sorry," Nico says, and Leo snaps his head up. "For being too weak to get us out. It should be my fault, not yours." He wants to acknowledge Leo's outburst, but he thinks if he did, he'd do something that complicates whatever their relationship is supposed to be even further.

"I said I thought I would never get out, you know," Leo says. "But I did. We'll probably be back in New York soon if we're lucky."

"Yeah."

There's a thick, heavy pause. Nico turns around, pulling his sweater over his fists. "Good night, Leo."

"Good night."

  
  


Even though Leo and Reyna will probably make up, their fight makes  Nico's brain hurt. It was so unexpected, the yelling and what Leo had said—it was basically repeating what Leo admitted in the woods, he doesn't feel _present_ like Nico does all the time. Seeing Leo raw, upset, triggers Nico's repressed memories of feeling excessively alone.

He grabs a bag of BBQ chips to eat and makes his way over to the abandoned train tracks. Owls screech and the grass crunches loudly under his feet as he squints through the dark to see. When he arrives, there's a faint orange glow emanating from inside of an open train car—Leo. Or a hobo lighting a fire, which is basically the same thing as Leo.

Nico steps inside the car. Leo's sitting against the furthest wall with flames on his fingertips, one of the very few children of Hephaestus perks, and knees pulled towards his chest.

"Hi."

"Hey," Leo mumbles without looking up.

He doesn't know what to say. Nico listens to the crickets chirping in the bushes outside for a minute before he decides to speak. Sometimes he's not sure whether speaking will make things worse or better. "Did you feel emotional the first time you saw Ogygia?"

(Nico had asked Hedge what it was before they went to sleep, eating more containers of roast beef together in the light of a dying fire. It was pretty awkward, and Hedge only knew that it was a desert island in the middle of the ocean.)

"I don't know," Leo says. "It was all overwhelming. I only got there because a minor goddesss got pissed that I was annoying, so she thought it was a valid reason to boot me off the ship. I guess I was, like, confused more than anything."

"I talked to Hedge about it," Nico leans against the wall, mocking Leo. "It sounded rough."

"What would you know?"

"I wouldn't. But I know what it's like to feel like you're finally in a place you're supposed to be and be taken away too soon."

"Part of it was the thing about being trapped there forever. Because I _hate_ this whole prophecy thing, you know—I don't want to carry the fate of the world on my shoulders. I'm actually too skinny for that." Nico snorts. "Just knowing that I didn't ever have to come back was so relieving. And I didn't want to if there was a chance, except there happened to be a chance and she told me to go back and save the world, and it was kind of that awful curse where you fall in love, so I had to for her. Or else she'd whack me with her cooking spoon or something."

"She?"

"Calypso." The name strikes a familiar chord—Nico remembers an explosion, a labyrinth, a funeral shroud, _Percy, Percy, Percy_ —it makes sense. Calypso was cursed by the Titan Atlas to stay on the island forever in exile and fall in love with heroes, only for them to leave, and it also makes sense that she wasn't Nico's first assumption. Because Leo's not a stereotypical hero type, with a short stature and no muscles and a lack of the heroic attitude that makes everyone swoon. "You know her?"

"Percy did," Nico shrugs, and Leo nods a little. "When I was still wandering around after my sister died, I had shown up on his birthday, on his balcony. He was planting something I guess he had gotten from her garden, saying something about keeping a promise. He was sort of like you, he wouldn't tell anyone what happened."

The flames on Leo's fingertips sputter. "Yeah. She liked gardening," he says, a bit sadly. "I—I don't know Percy that well, but I think he's one of the only guys who kept his promise to Calypso. Dunno if I should be jealous or not."

"I think I've been jealous of Percy as long as I've known him."

"Why?"

Nico thinks about Percy: he had hated him, and he wasn't even sure why for a while. Percy had gone on a quest with Nico's sister, promising to bring her back, but Bianca ended up dying on the other side of the country at the hands of Hephaestus's failed creation, but Nico felt like he anticipated it. He knew he was going to be alone somehow, because it seems like all children of Death live a worse-off life than others, like it's branded in their DNA.

And then there was Percy after Bianca's death—caring almost a little too much about Nico, never leaving him behind, even going as far as following him to an old hag's house filled with burnt cookies and Hermes memorabilia. It was foreign, and it was even worse that literally the only thing twelve-year-old Nico could think about was Percy's hand on Nico's shoulder or his sea-green eyes blinking back at him.

Stupid schoolgirl crush. He's over it. Or something.

Nico takes a breath. It's not a big deal _, it's not a big deal._ "I think I was in love with him."

Gods, what is he _saying_?

"Oh. Okay." Leo blinks. "Cool."

"Yeah." Nico plays with his sleeves. "He was... really accepting. Didn't treat me like a freak or anything. That's also why I get it."

"Did anyone know?"

"Jason does."

Leo perks up. "Jason?"

"Yeah. In Albania, we went to get Diocletian's scepter together, and Cupid basically—he forced me to out myself over Percy, I guess. Jason was cool with it, but... it wasn't a pleasant experience." Nico hates thinking about it; he's never been that turbulent or fragile. "That's also why I know how it feels to be forced to tell people something you're not completely comfortable with."

"I mean, I guess I'm glad I told you guys, because at least you know and _get it_ ," Leo says. "I just thought it would put me even more out of place than I already am."

"Maybe telling people things isn't bad."

Another pause in the conversation. There's not much more to say.

"We're never gonna get ourselves out of this stupid field, are we?" Leo asks.

"Nah."

It's quiet for the rest of the night.

  


Nico jerks out of his half-asleep daze to more yelling. He had so much trouble sleeping last night—he laid down at 2 A.M. after leaving the abandoned  train car, and his mind couldn't stop rotating between Leo, Percy, Leo Percy, over and over again. He's giving himself a headache.

" _I got it! I got it!_ " Reyna screams from across the field in the shade of the Athena Parthenos. Nico can see her jumping up and down in her dirty purple t-shirt, braid flying in the air.

"What?" Nico jogs to where she's standing. "You got what?"

"I know how to get to New York."

Nico scratches his head. Hedge and Leo are standing next to him, eating a jar of Twizzlers. "How?"

"Leo figured it out, he's a genius," Reyna does the closest thing she's ever done to a smile.

"I literally just told you that the truck next to the gift shop looks like it was dragged out of a dumpster—"

"We're taking the truck!"

Nico blinks. "How did nobody think of that?"

"It wasn't here until today, but the owner of the Confederate gift shop drove over with it."

"So... we're hot wiring it?"

"Exactly," Hedge nods grimly, like it's a valiant task. "A dangerous mission. I have to be in charge, being the only person with a license. And a black belt in karate, to kick any enemy butt."

Reyna rolls her eyes, but claps Hedge on the back so hard that Hedge flies forward. Nico and Leo try to hold back a laugh.

By the afternoon, they've successfully harnessed the giant Athena Parthenos to the back of the truck. Nico's afraid it'll break the entire thing, but the statue is hollow and surprisingly light for a 1993 Ford Focus to carry. The group has decidedly ignored how they're going to drag it behind them for the entire drive up to Long Island.

The truck is only a two-seater, so Nico and Leo are forced to lie down in the back with blankets and the pee Gatorade. Leo lies spread-eagle, taking up half the space, while Nico rests his arms behind his head.

"I take it that you made up with Reyna?"

"Uhuh," Leo says. "I think she was just stressed about... yeah. And demigods always have, like, troubled pasts, so I think she understands."

"That's the only good part about all of us—we don't fight over that stuff for a long time. Now I wish we would stop fighting that war in New York."

"We're not getting there, the attack is scheduled for today," Leo rolls over to face Nico. The sun reflects in his eyes and turns them into a bright honey. "I don't know if I should be worried or relieved."

"Prophecy stuff. Right," Nico says, and Leo sighs. He remembers that Leo said he never wanted to come back, but he's lying next to Nico on his way back to do just that.

"Prophecy stuff."

“I’m just happy to leave this dry hole."

The truck starts up, the engine humming beneath the rough truck bed. Nico watches the sun sink further on the horizon, sending bright rays into the bloody orange sky, as they move further away from the field. He's definitely not going to miss South Carolina, he thinks. Or the Athena Parthenos—he hopes he never has to look at it again.

Leo speaks again when it gets dark and the stars are visible in the near-black sky. "I think I'm gonna die at Half-Blood."

"I can't sense a trace of death on you," Nico mumbles, "For once."

"Well, you couldn't sense me when I was in Ogygia, but here I am."

"Dying doesn't even sound so bad for a demigod. It actually sounds great—you won't be chased all over the world by monsters and thrown into another unwanted prophecy."

"I guess so. But you wouldn't even go anywhere."

"Yeah, my dad would just lock me in his palace and make me play Connect Four with me for eternity."

"Sounds better than the Fields of Punishment."

"Hanging out with my dad _is_ punishment. He's literally the god of the Underworld."

"Do you think he'll let me into his crib?"

"Don't say _crib_ ever again," Nico squints. "I'll fight anyone who tries to kill you."

"Stick with what you're good at, Death Boy."

Nico punches Leo in the shoulder and Leo laughs. They're going to be okay.

  



End file.
